A scathing new report reveals the catastrophic consequences of Ed Miliband’s Net Zero fantasies, with Britain already teetering on the edge of blackouts last month. Energy expert Kathryn Porter writing for Net Zero Watch warns the UK’s electricity grid is already stretched to breaking point with the rise in ‘frequency excursions’—where grid frequency drifts dangerously beyond safe limits—proving the system is already running on fumes. Still Miliband ploughs ahead with his climate crusade that’s only going to make things worse…
Meanwhile, the grid infrastructure to support the transition into green energy (which is effectively useless when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine) is nowhere near ready. Porter warns:
“The plan doesn’t rise much above the level of a fairy tale – it’s clear that the technical feasibility of what is proposed has barely been considered. And to the extent that it becomes reality, it will make energy security even more of a problem.”
Rachel Reeves claims she’s “going for growth,” yet Britain still has the most expensive energy in the developed world—hardly an incentive for businesses to set up shop or expand. As economist Roger Bootle says, “there is no point in impoverishing ourselves in order to ‘lead the world’ on Net Zero.” Meanwhile, diplomatic sources have reportedly suggested Britain could be dragged back into Brussels’ Net Zero climate scheme as part of Starmer’s grand plan to “reset” Brexit. Higher costs, more red tape, and a return to EU diktats—some “growth” strategy that is…
Wes Streeting is to hire a Labour activist as an impartial civil servant to the Department for Health’s “10 Year Health Plan” team. Tom Kibasi, former director of hard-left think tank IPPR, is the newest crony appointment…
Kibasi, who ran IPPR from 2016 to 2019, helped direct Starmer’s leadership bid – hosting meetings, directing the key advert, and writing lines. He was passed over for a job once the race was over in 2021 and subsequently turned on Starmer’s ‘hard on Corbyn’ approach…
The left-wing wonk has long publicly backed Labour with a history of support for gargantuan tax hikes by taxing capital gains and dividends at income tax rates. Now he’s helping to direct health policy as a supposedly non-partisan civil servant. He can join some of Streeting’s other crony appointments…
The education secretary is giving her first major speech this morning with promises for a “new era on school standards” to reverse the “dark days of weak accountability” for schools. Not that the unions agree…
NEU general secretary Daniel Kebede today says Ofsted’s new report card system “will make things worse, not better” because “it will simply lead to headteachers trying to gather lots of evidence on all of these areas and that pressure trickles down through the school system to the teachers, to the support staff and indeed to the young people and the children.” Has Bridget realised all that kowtowing to the unions always ends this way?
Phillipson is speaking at the Centre for Social Justice:
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson MP delivers Keynote Speech at the Centre for Social Justice https://t.co/O5j5Kqeecw
— The Centre for Social Justice (@csjthinktank) February 3, 2025
Keir Starmer is off to Brussels today to be the first Prime Minister since Brexit to cozy up to all 27 EU leaders as he looks to deepen ties with the bloc. Starmer’s pushing for a UK-EU security pact, though as usual, it’s UK gives, and the EU takes. This time, EU leaders are pushing for a Youth Mobility Scheme, which would effectively pave the way for a return to free movement. Happy five years of Brexit…
Starmer’s close ally and former Blair Cabinet minister, Lord Falconer, was on the Today programme this morning, already laying the groundwork for joining the Youth Mobility Scheme, effectively touting it as already in motion:
“They [EU] need to trust us…we can get closer…we need to be as close as we can without giving up the freedoms that were obtained by doing Brexit and Keir is doing a very good job in trying to get to that particular position. It means a negotiation with the European Union. So we want less friction in our trade, they want the rolling over of the Fisheries agreement and they want the Youth Mobility Scheme. There will have to be a negotiation…and that’s really the job [Starmer] is doing.”
This would be a double betrayal—not just of Brexit but of yet another Labour promise. The government has spent months insisting it wouldn’t join the scheme:
While Starmer bows to Brussels, he drifts further from a booming Washington. Labour’s road to rejoin is well underway…
With Starmer busily unravelling Brexit, shuttling back and forth to Brussels to meet with EU leaders and inviting Macron, Scholz and others to Chequers, Brexiteers are watching developments carefully. Their anxiety has not been helped by the Tory approach, published over the weekend…
Kemi has adopted ‘five tests’ as her Brexit position: As any veteran of Brexit negotiations will say, the only position that matters right now as far as the EU is concerned is whether or not Starmer’s deal would be accepted in the UK. Kemi’s tests certainly leave that open…
5 years ago we delivered the biggest democratic mandate in British history.
Now Keir Starmer, who campaigned for a second referendum, is trying to take us backwards.
So we’re setting him 5 tests he must meet in any future deal with the EU 👇 pic.twitter.com/XrNUCRtBeU
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) February 2, 2025
The Tories cannot block any renegotiation in parliamentary terms after the Sunak wipeout. But along with the media heft of Reform, they are in a position to influence Starmer’s diplomatic negotiation by saying they would reject his deal outright. Except, they’ve done the opposite…
A slew of Brexit veterans got in touch with Guido to express concerns about particular ‘tests’ – ‘no backsliding on free movement’ does not explicitly rule out the EU mobility scheme. ‘No compromise on the primacy of NATO’ leaves plenty of room for other EU defence initiatives. “The EU will see this as a signal it can just do what it likes and it will not be opposed in Britain,” said one leading Brexiteer. Although ERG numbers are now heavily depleted in Parliament, will they wake up?
Trump was asked overnight about potential tariffs for Europe:
“The UK is way out of line and we’ll see. But European Union is really out of line. The UK is out of line but I’m sure that one, I think that one can be worked out. But the European Union, it’s an atrocity what they’ve done.”
A Brexit dividend. The President said the EU is “definitely” getting tariffed and that “they take almost nothing and we take everything from them.” He offered the UK a way out, saying Starmer has “been very nice.”
“We’ve had a couple of meetings. We’ve had numerous phone calls. We’re getting along very well.”
Starmer for his part said yesterday that “it is early days. What I want to see is strong trading relations.” The vast majority of dispatches from across the pond have made clear that the new administration is keen to work extremely closely with the UK but their efforts are so far unreciprocated. Starmer is now en route to Brussels to reopen Brexit negotiations…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”